88 replies to this topic

[Cheater]

There were probably other slot racers who were paid to race and to represent the manufacturer they worked for, Team Russkit is one other who comes to mind.

 

But I'm betting no one has ever seen an actual contract of anyone paid to race slot cars.

 

Howie Ursaner was contracted to Cobra Slot Car Products starting in July 1967. You can read the details in the images below, but the annual income was $5,200 a year plus expenses. That sum would be over $40,000 a year in 2020.

 

Howie: "Here is my original contract to race slot cars for Cobra signed July 1967. My contract included an expense account that paid for all travel, parts, any expenses I had including gas for my '66 Corvette!"

 

Q: Did they renew?

"Yes, they did renew and I walked away during it to go be a free love hippie in San Francisco. They could not believe I was giving up all the money. I still remember sitting there telling them and they were astounded."

Those of us who know Howie probably aren't too surprised he bailed. After all, he was just going out while he was on top! LOL.

(Click on the images to enlarge them for much easier reading.)

 

 

 

 

 

[Alchemist]

Thanks for sharing that, Greg!

 

Hope you're doing well!

 

Ernie

[TSR]

From the research I did in the 1990s, very few slot racers were on a manufacturers' payroll.
 
None of the Team Russkit members were ever paid a salary. They were paid traveling and non-Russkit hardware expenses, and got all the product they needed to race.

Other than Howie, only a few others were ever on payroll: Jerry Brady when racing for Dyna Rewind and John Cukras when racing for Mura.

Of course, employees of manufacturers who were themselves racing, such as Bob Cozine or Ray Gardner at Champion, were paid just the same since it was part of their jobs.

[tonyp]

Wow, I always thought the Russkit guys were paid. Did any of them work at Russkit?

[TSR]

Tony, no, but Mike Morrissey did part-time work there.

[slotbaker]

Interesting bit of history here.

 

Did any of the pros race internationally, on behalf of their sponsors?

 

[TSR]

The answer to that is, no.
As far as I know, the only people who traveled to race abroad (in England and Germany) were the ones financed by Bruce Paschal's "Banana Boat Travel Agency": Bob Emott, Bryan Warmack and John Anderson.
In any case they were not sponsored by any of the companies of which products they used, because most of said companies would never have been able to afford it.

I do not believe that anyone else did. Remember that most of the top "pros" were teenagers, barely getting in the twenties for some. In the day, that posed plenty of limitations... it's not like today when traveling (except for the current period of insanity) has been made so easy and relatively inexpensive.
That may never come back as several airlines will fall off the planet before all this is over.

[Howie Ursaner]

No other slot racers were paid money to just race slot cars and make public appearances except Sandy Gross who came over from Russkit after I talked Lou and Stan at Cobra into giving him a contract with some money.

 

All the other "sponsored "driver s got mainly parts. The few that made money were being paid to work at the companies they raced for, like John Cukras who put in a lot of time at Mura. There are no other contracts that exist.

 

As for international racing, Bob Emott was "sponsored" by Bruce Paschal in that Bruce put Bob on one of his United Fruit "Chiquita Banana" cargo ships to England, where he won the Tottenham race.

[scaleuser]

Fun facts... pretty much as we mortals figured. And how cool  that some of the real pros are still racing.

 

Warning... corona lockdown delirium post ahead: 

 

I feel a bit of reverence for those "patriarchs" of our hobby. I fantasize about one of them, or some of them, turing the country visiting the notable tracks and racing with the locals. What an event they could generate. Their expenses would have to be fully covered and who could blame them if they said ahhh... no. But I continue:

 

They could travel light... just bring their controllers. Let the local racers offer cars to race. What an honor if the car you offered was picked. Should they not win, they could award plaques that say "I beat... their name" OR, if they do win "I got beat by... their name"

 

Who are the still racing "patriarchs" or the most prolific winners who might qualify as our celebrities?

[tonyp]

Team Russkit did indeed do that. They sent drivers on tour to race at local tracks.

The first time I saw Howie and Sandy at Tom Thumb hobbies in Union NJ when they visited the track on a promotional trip.

[Mr. M]

Tony,

 

What kind of $ did the factory guys like Cukras and Cozine pull down? I would guess it was not that much as their duration as actual pros was not very long.

[MSwiss]

From the famous Leon Mandel article:

"... and the legendary John Cukras (Soo-krus), team captain for Mura out of San Francisco and rumored to benefit from an income of $50,000 a year."

Cukras making $25K a year, seems to be the rumored number I remember from back in the day.

IIRC, Howie, in our many conversations, when he stays at my house during the Sano, has categorized those rumored amounts as highly fictional.

[TSR]

Yes, the $50K figure was a bit over the top. John got paid only one year, in 1968. The figure Ron Mura told me in our long interview was close to $30K.

"The truth is closer to $30,000, already a substantial figure for 1968.  With cash in hand, John bought himself a Shelby GT350 and a house in Long Beach."

[Don Weaver]

From the famous Leon Mandel article:

"... and the legendary John Cukras (Soo-krus), team captain for Mura out of San Francisco and rumored to benefit from an income of $50,000 a year."

 
I was going to ask about the oft-mentioned $50K Cukras was supposedly paid. Graduating from the Univ. of Tenn. in 1967 I made the astounding amount of $7,800 per year which wasn't really as bad as it sounds today.
 
Don

[Howie Ursaner]

Yes, the $50K figure was a bit over the top. John got paid only one year, in 1968. The figure Ron Mura told me in our long interview was close to $30K.

"The truth is closer to $30,000, already a substantial figure for 1968.  With cash in hand, John bought himself a Shelby GT350 and a house in Long Beach."

 

John got paid well. Not anything like that kind of money. He got paid to work hard at the shop and did a lot of work there. I don't think he got paid anything to race except expenses and maybe a bonus here and there. 

 

One of his big perks was the Mustang he drove. I'm pretty sure it was Ron Mura's. I did no work at the shop and all I did was race and do promotions which were not so much fun sometimes, driving endlessly for weeks with Lou around the country in a '67 Galaxy that went 87 mph to the floor all the way across Texas. I bought my '66 427 Vette conv, one year old, for $2,800. One of my perks was that there were quite a few money races in the NY area and I was cleaning up there. Made some good money at the Atlanta Arco also.

John is also brilliant with HO cars and designed some of the best ones for Aurora and Tyco. That's where his real money came from.

[1A Racing]

I just Googled $30,000 in 1968 is worth how much now. It came up with about $227,400.

 

Don, your $7,800 comes in at a little over $59,000.

[Cheater]

Freddie,

 

Keep in mind that there's no standard formula for computing the changing value of money over time. Everyone has a different algorithm for making that calculation. There are numerous sites that will make that calculation and they'll vary some, although it will give a decently narrow range of values.

[1A Racing]

Gotcha, I was just quickly looking for a quick comparison.

 

 

[Cheater]

Understood. I do the same thing.

[Howie Ursaner]

Houses that were $100,000 back then are well over a million now. so that's 1000% inflation. Corvette's that were 4000 than are 80 thousand now. Gas was 27 cents for premium now its usually over 3$ . Inflation is way higher than those tables say it is.

[Half Fast]

Thanks all for this thread, I think many of us were wondering about this for 50 years or so

 

Cheers

[Revtor]

Speaking of racing with the greats, Henry Harnish, 1962 Aurora Grand National Champion won a Brand new Thunderbird at age 15... From good ol NJ!

He is still at it after quite a hiatus and has a basement racing mecca with 5 tracks where the HO racers gather twice a year for fun racing.

It is definitely exciting when you are in presence of one of the patriarchs as you would say. . Hes twice my age and kicked my butt all over the place.

https://www.henryhar...m/low/index.htm

[don.siegel]

Great site, good to see the news from Henry, and it's a fascinating story. 

 

Don 

 

PS: I worked at my local hobby shop in 1967-68, so I guess I was the local "pro"... very loosely speaking. Got paid a big $1.25 an hour, but still had to buy my own hot dogs and fries at the greasy spoon across the street (E. 71st in Chicago). 

[Uncle Fred]

My older brother bought his 66 Corvette 427/425 brand new for $4200.  By the time Howie had his Vette my brother had purchase a new 68 Z28 with 4:56 gears from Baldwin Chevrolet which led to an all out drag race on 164TH Street. Howie edged him out at about 100 MPH!  Howie had disconnected 2 of the 3 2 barrel carbs to save on gas...…….even @30 cents a gallon the 427 was expensive to run.

 

I heard that Jerry Brady would get a $100 bonus for every race he won and that Cukrus got arrested for vagrancy even though he had $300 in his pocket.

[rodslot53]

Other than Bob Emott who raced at Tottenham in September, 1969, the only other Pro visiting the U.K was Ed Lewis who arrived with his sidewinder chassis that so impressed Barry Magee. I think Ed worked for Champion in some capacity.